EmilyA
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Posts posted by EmilyA
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Would just like to point out RH, that just because I live here, it doesn't mean I don't spend money in the UK or pay tax there! (As well as here.)
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RH I can understand cutting benefits to higher earners, but I cannot for the life of me see why living in the south of England would entitle me to WFA and living in the north of France wouldn't. These are not gifts, they are benefits payable to people who have worked and paid contributions.
I don't need to be in the UK to know how many services are being cut (and how the bankers are still being rewarded), I read the papers, watch TV, talk to my children and know how much my former colleagues are suffering. The fact is that that the tabloid press enjoys having a go at safe targets whilst failing to take on the people who really are taking rewards they don't deserve.
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Yes I had noticed that bashing Brits abroad had become a national sport. That is when they are not bashing us for being baby-boomers (so selfish of our parents to want to have children at the end of the war....). It seems a bit sad that the media has nothing more important to focus on....
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Yes RH we have seen the "articles" in the tabloid papers about WFA and those of us abroad who bask in the sun all year round.
We have had the heating on in Normandy this morning, BTW.
Of course if they wrap the payment into the OAP then we will get it anyway.
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Well that does sound daft. If you have enough contributions to get a pension then surely you should get it. Otherwise recent might not be recent enough if you are abroad but would be fine if you moved back to the UK? If all WFA abroad is 1% of the total, how much are we talking about here? My contributions finished much later than my OH, but I don't have as many so I might get it and he won't??
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It still seems to say that if you moved abroad before you reached pension age that you may be entitled to WFA. I can't see any clarification of that, but I don't know if I am missing something?
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I thought Pacitel had worked a treat until the Mayor pointed out that we were no longer in the phone book. Seems to be an excellent solution, although I hadn't asked them to do it.
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Does anyone know how we claim and when?
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Interesting. I thought one of DC's recent proposals was to get rid of WFA for people living abroad? I love the way the Sun readers assume that everwhere abroad is hot. Perhaps it could be like the pasty tax and they could go round with thermometers to see if it is cold enough to qualify? Can't quite see where the Sun gets all those tens of millions of pounds that it is going to cost. I think I read somewhere the other day that payments abroad are 1% of the total.
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Strangely enough someone said exactly that at our gym class dinner on Monday. She said they were pourris (de ou par I can't remember) l'argent.
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We barbecue them, Patf. We like them, but wouldn't have just merguez on their own, we normally do them as one variety of sausage amongst two or three. I tend to stock up on spices in the UK as I find they are much cheaper and I love couscous aux sept legumes.
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It is fairly easy to find in the South-East, have seen merguez in all the supermarkets. Do you have Ocado so that you could get them delivered? If not, then I remember getting a local sausage maker in Dorset to do them for us about 25 years ago, so could you take the harissa and a recipe to a local butcher? We had to get them to make quite a lot and then we froze them.
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Actually I think I was thinking of the P85 and confusing it with the process of the France Individuel. It seems to me the P85 is important because whenever I speak to HMRC they ask me for the date I left the UK. A copy of it would seem to establish very clearly that you had left the UK and would be taxed abroad.
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Do they want the form that you fill in to say you are tax resident in France and no longer in the UK? Sorry can't remember the name of it. As I remember we got it from HMRC, filled it in, took it to the local tax office who sent it to Paris and several months later we got confirmation from HMRC that we would no longer be taxed in the UK.
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I had kept copies and sent them with the tax return as this is our first S1 year. It will be interesting to see if they want a copy every year as obviously the form is the same one and doesn't get updated. I wonder if there is a bit of confusion at tax offices around the S1 (E106) as this obviously is time-limited.
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Yes, but the point is that with the NHS you are not dealing directly with how much is being paid by whom and when. We have just discovered that not one doctor's payment has gone through from our CV to our caisse since Christmas, although the pharmacy has been reimbursed. Now we have to go to the doctor and ask for 9 backdated feuilles de soin. That will be fun.
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Welcome to the wonderful world of RSI.
During the life cycle of our business / retirement / pension, I have made the round trip of 120km approximately six to eight times a year to our regional office. Rule 1 is that you always need to go in person; phone calls don't work, emails ditto (think someone once said a smoke signal would have as much chance), recorded deliveries - sometimes. Rule 2 is that you need a copy all your paperwork every time (went there this week and a man got out of his car with the most enormous cardboard box of paperwork I have ever seen.). Rule 3. Get there early to avoid the queues; the ladies on the desk have always been helpful, we have got quite friendly with some of them.
Having said that, although I must have provided about 6 copies each of my birth / marriage certificates I have never been asked for a translation. I have sometimes translated bits myself (er marriage is mariage etc). I can see the underlining would upset them, so I would try going in person with a fresh copy. It has got to be cheaper than a translator and it will help you to get to know them.
There is a lot on this forum and others that will give you a flavour of what you are likely to encounter with this "organisation".
Good luck.
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We have been invited to two weddings this summer. One is the son of one of my friends and we will go to that one; the second is for the vin d'honneur for the wedding of the daughter of one of my colleagues on the Conseil Municipal. We don't know the couple at all and we will be in England on the weekend that it takes place. Should we just send a card, thanking them for the invitation and wishing them well or would more be expected?
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Clair there is only one thing to do which is to go to the regional head office and see them. I recommend going early when they open. Take everything with you and sit there until you get it sorted. I estimate we have done the 120km round trip to our regional office at least 6 times a year in the life cycle of our business. It is the only way.
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I also think the media have a very London and South-East centric view of these wealthy "baby-boomers". Are the people who were steelworkers and miners "sitting on a fortune in property with gold-plated pensions". I think not. There was an article recently about a journalist with a well-off friend who had "free rail travel". He didn't even seem to know that it was not the case outside London.
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You could only get an 80% mortgage in 1971 too as I recall. You could also only get two and a half times your salary and we had savings and help from Mum and Dad for the deposit (we did this for our children too). You had to go through a painful process of going as a supplicant to the mortgage company and waiting to be approved as there were only a limited number available each month. Wives salaries did not count.
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Just had a look and an identical house to the one we bought for £4250 in 1971 (North Wales) was worth £100,000 last year. Is that a huge increase in value relative to 1971? I don't doubt that some people played the property market and made a lot of money, but if you buy your house to live in it, I am not sure how it necessarily makes you hugely rich. Surely you live in it until you either sell it to pay for residential care or you leave it to your children (or whoever)? At best you might be able to release a bit of capital and downsize.
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The house prices thing is interesting though. We bought our first house for £4250 in 1971. It sounds cheap, but our income was £1250pa and the mortgage rate was 7.5% or thereabouts. We had no car, no TV, no washing machine, no central heating (sounds a bit Monty Python sketch I know). Is that really such a huge difference for today's first-time buyers?
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Very jumpy about! The other problem is (and this may be our rubbish broadband) that it takes forever to get down the white bit so approx 30 seconds to make it down the page to read a thread or post. My contributions / pearls of wisdom may be a bit limited for the time being!
New ruling on Winter fuel allowance
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